June 22
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Featured Event
© Daniel Motz—PA Images/Alamy; Photo Illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
On this day in 1986 Argentine football (soccer) player Diego Maradona scored his memorable “Hand of God” goal (the ball struck his hand, but the referee mistakenly thought it had hit his head) in a 1986 FIFA World Cup quarterfinal game against England. The illegal goal helped Argentina win the match, and they went on to win the tournament—their second FIFA World Cup title. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© 2006 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
American film actress Meryl Streep—whose masterly technique, expertise with dialects, and subtly expressive face helped her win three Academy Awards amid a record number of Oscar nominations—was born this day in 1949.
Famous Birthdays
More on June 22
Carlin Productions
2008
American comedian George Carlin—whose “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the right to determine when to censor radio and TV broadcasts—died at age 71. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about pop culture.]
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
1978
© StonePhotos/Shutterstock.com
1969
In Cleveland the severely polluted Cuyahoga River caught on fire when an oil slick floating on the surface ignited; although it was not the first fire on the river, the incident garnered national attention and led to antipollution measures that substantially improved the river’s condition. [Read Britannica’s Timeline of Environmental History.]
© The Walt Disney Company
1955
The animated musical Lady and the Tramp, one of Walt Disney’s most endearing movies, was released in U.S. theaters. [Test your knowledge of Walt Disney.]
NARA/U.S. Department of Defense
1941
Germany violated the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939 and attacked the Soviet Union during World War II. [Sort fact from fiction in our World War II quiz.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1940
With an invading German force at its door in mid-June 1940, the French government under the leadership of Marshal Philippe Pétain signed an armistice with Germany, thereby creating Vichy France (the “French State”). [Test your knowledge of French history.]
Courtesy of the Dance Collection, the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
1910
Katherine Dunham, an African American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist noted for her innovative interpretations of primitive, ritualistic, and ethnic dances, was born. [Take our dance quiz.]
© 1950 Paramount Pictures
1906
American motion-picture director and producer Billy Wilder, who was known for films that humorously treat subjects of controversy and offer biting indictments of hypocrisy in American life, was born in Sucha, Austria (now in Poland). [Test your knowledge of film.]
Horst Tappe/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1887
English biologist and philosopher Julian Huxley, who greatly influenced the modern development of embryology, was born in London. [How much do you know about science?]
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.15
1815
Napoleon abdicated as French emperor for the second time. [Take our Napoleon Bonaparte quiz.]
SCALA/Art Resource, New York
1633
Accused of heresy by the Inquisition, Galileo was forced to recant his support of the Copernican system, which held that the Sun was the center of the solar system. [Test your knowledge of astronomy and space.]
© North Wind Picture Archives
1611
English explorer Henry Hudson—who earlier had tried to discover a short route from Europe to Asia through the Arctic Ocean—was set adrift with his son and seven others in Hudson Bay by mutineers. [Take our quiz about exploration and discovery.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
168 bce
The Romans defeated the Macedonians under King Perseus at the Battle of Pydna, which marked the end of the Macedonian monarchy and allowed Rome’s annexation of Macedonia.